Too cold to go out? Have fun shooting pictures indoors!

Even though winter has not started out as cold as usual in this neck of the woods, the weather can still put a bit of a dampener on things. 

Not to worry, there's still plenty to shoot indoors! Let's take for example splash photos. With splash photography the aim is to freeze the motion when the subject hits the water. The subject can be water or an other object that falls in the water.  

Setting up the shot:

1. Put your camera on a tripod
2. Use Flash (start with a 1/8 power)
3. Background. Use a white or a coloured background. A coloured background gives the water a different color. Point the flash towards the background.
4. A cable release can make the job just a little bit easier.
5. A towel (or two) to clean up the mess.... 
   

Camera settings:

1. Pre focus and put it on manual. 
2. Set your camera in manual and use a low ISO, a shutterspeed of 200/250 and a aperture of around F8/F11.

And you're ready to go! Start shooting and see what works best for your setup. I know I always need quite a lot of pictures to get that couple of pics that are just right. I guess it's a bit trial and error. Just make sure your equipment is not getting soaked. 

When you've got the pictures you want, import them into Lightroom and go on the hunt for your best pictures: in focus and sharp. I hope you have fun trying this out! I know I did!

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Tutorial: making a splash

There's so much to discover in the world of photography! I love to try something new every once in a while. Today I tried my hand at splash photography. To get an idea of what I mean with splash photography, do watch this clip from Gavin Hoey.

Time to get started. What do I need? A white background and a white subsurface. I used a small table and put it in front of a white door, using white cardboard as underground. I put one speedlight to the side. And for the splashy bit of the picture, I filled a wine glass with some red lemonade. Voila! 

After the set-up was done, I grabbed my camera to start the shoot. First I focused on the glass and then I switched my lens to manual. I wasn't really satisfied with the first couple of pics I took: the background was a bit grey-ish, not nearly as white as I imaged it would come out. So I cranked up the power of the flash. 

And this was the outcome, not too bad for a first timer at splash photography! 

These are the basics:

1. Put your camera on a tripod
2. Focus on your subject with F8 or more
3. Switch to Manual focus
4. Switch on your flash on 1/8 power (as a starting point)
5. Set your camera around 1/200 and ISO 200 (as a starting point)
6. Take a shot and check if you like the lighting. If the background needs brightening, put more light on it with your speedlight. 
7. Drop and shoot a lot to have a range of pictures. I prefer to work with a remote control. 
8. Import the pictures into Lightroom and edit the best one(s)
9. Start cleaning up the mess you left behind at the scene of your shoot..... 

And with photoshop/ Lightroom it's very easy to change the colors

There are loads of possibilities with this kind of photography. We'll be doing some more experimenting with this in the next couple of weeks to improve our technique. I for one prefer the background to be even more white. And it sounds like fun to experiment for example with milk and fruit and white subsurface and dye. In other words, did you like this post? Make sure to check back in a couple of weeks (at least) to read some more about splash photography! 

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